Page 79 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition
P. 79
Secret Sting to Expose Celebrity Psychic 79
Inside the Secret Sting
Operations to Expose
Celebrity Psychic
Are some celebrity mediums
fooling their audience members
by reading social media pages in
advance? A group of online
vigilantes is out to prove it.
When you’re setting up fake Facebook
pages, it’s the little details that can mess
things up. On a group computer call last
winter, Susan Gerbic was going through
her checklist of tips for her team’s latest
sting operation — this one focused on
infiltrating the audience of a psychic. It
all started with maintaining their
Facebook sock puppets — those fake
online profiles. “American spellings vineyards or the Queen Mary the opening credits of “The Brady
everyone!” she commanded her half- permanently anchored in Long Beach. Bunch,” a tick-tack-toe board of men and
dozen international colleagues through Some regional favorites may sound women ranging from Daniel in New
the Skype crackle. familiar — Theresa Caputo, the Long Zealand, Ruth in London, Kimon in
Island medium; or Chip Coffey, the Alabama, Robert in Maine and Michelle
Gerbic lives in Salinas, Calif., and while “clairvoyant, clairaudient and near Humpty Doo, Australia. Matthew
she is retired from the routine world of clairsentient” psychic. Fraser, the target, is a young Long Island
work, she has taken on a new job, as self- psychic who resembles Tom Cruise in the
appointed guardian of Enlightenment These are good, extremely profitable role of an oversharing altar boy. He has
Reason. She spends most of her days days for the ectoplasm-related industry. been on the circuit for years, has a book
wrangling her far-flung group of According to one market analysis, there under his belt and works some
Guerrilla Skeptics into common cause, are nearly 95,000 psychic “businesses” in Doubletree or Crowne Plaza back room
defending empirical truth online. This America, generating some $2 billion in every two or three days.
usually consists of editing and revenue in 2018. Lately, technology has
monitoring Wikipedia pages — a cat- changed the business of talking to the These Guerrilla Skeptics are hoping to
herding task she says she’s uniquely dead and created new kinds of openings catch Fraser on tape spewing intimate
qualified for. “I was a baby for psychics to lure customers but also Facebook details that are totally false
photographer,” she explained. “I ran a new ways for skeptics to flip that about the person the psychic is
JCPenney portrait studio for 34 years.” technology right back at them. addressing. In fact, the details aren’t true
about anyone, because they will be
Collectively, the group, which has For instance, many psychics still rely on entirely fabricated by people like
swelled to 144 members, has researched, “cold readings,” in which the psychic Michelle of Humpty Doo. At this stage,
written or revised almost 900 Wikipedia uses clues, like your clothes or subtle on this Skype call, the group’s only task
pages. Sure, they take on the classics, like body signals, to make educated, but is to create and maintain these fake
debunking “spontaneous human generally vague, guesses about your life Facebook profiles. These need to look
combustion,” but many of their other and family. But the internet has normal — with regular updates of, say, a
pages have real-world impact. For popularized a new kind of “hot reading,” good New Yorker cartoon or a gif of Will
instance, they straightened out a lot of in which the psychics come to their Ferrell dancing, along with vintage
grim hooey about the teen-suicide myth shows prepped with specific details about Polaroid pics or posts expressing sly life
“blue whale game,” and they have various members of the audience. One sentiments. (“Still a little pissed I can’t
provided facts about the Burzynski new source of psychic intel is Facebook, fly or set things on fire with my mind!”)
Clinic, a theoretical treatment for cancer which has become a clearinghouse for the
operating out of Houston. kind of insider, personal detail that “Post often, post cat pictures, memes,
psychics used to have to really sweat for. favorite foods, recipes,” Gerbic urged
Most recently, Gerbic’s members have If anything, “the psychics have just through the crackle and pop, and to
focused on what they call “grief gotten lazier,” a team member told me. ensure they don’t get caught too easily,
vampires,” that is, the kind of “Make sure the pictures aren’t too
middlebrow psychics who profit by The crew invited to last winter’s Skype Google searchable!” The Facebook pages
claiming to summon the dead in shows in meeting had been vetted by Gerbic to are meant to be catnip.
venues ranging from casinos or any old participate in a mission called “Operation
Motel 6 conference suite to wine Peach Pit” (and I was invited to observe). (Continued on Page 80)
On my computer screen, we resembled
